


Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk

by pillarboxred



Series: Poses [1]
Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, M/M, Slight Mentions of Alcohol and Drug Use, Trying to Be Friends and Failing Miserably At It, Unwise Life Choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-03-31 08:43:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3971422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pillarboxred/pseuds/pillarboxred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I can't pretend it didn't happen Louis," Nick says, and Louis feels all the blood very abruptly drain from his face.  “But I'd really like to."</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <i>"So why don't you?  Try, I mean.  S'got to be better than driving yourself mental about it.  It happened, it was a mistake, it won’t happen again, move along."</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>"You're awfully wise for half ten in the morning."</i></p><p> </p><p> <i>"You mean I'm awfully right for half ten in the morning."</i></p><p> </p><p>Or, Louis makes both a bad decision and a new (sort-of) friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the Rufus Wainwright song of the same name.
> 
> Whilst Louis is of age according to UK standards, I've tagged this with underage just in case. And if you're not into under-18 sex, just know that the scene in the beginning is the only one of its kind.

Louis honestly has no idea what _his_ name is.

Hadn’t had much time to catch it actually, what with the noise and the flashing lights and the crush of bodies in one space.

_I feel your hot breath on my tongue. I wonder where you’ve gone._

But his smile…

Oh that is wide and it is kind.

Louis doesn’t exactly know if he _wants_ kind, but kind might make it easier. Easier to get that _other_ thing he wants. That thing he’d come here to get, all done up in his best trousers and button-up, his hair arranged to within an inch of its life.

“Let’s go to yours!” he shouts over the music, a song by TATE he’d loved when it’d first come out. He’d listened to it over and over again until it’d begun to bleed into his dreams.

 _And the ever-turning spinning wheel of people, places, lies I feel the restless beat of the sleepless night to come_.

“What?” The Guy, tall, so tall, and with wonderful hair, says, bending down and putting an ear to Louis’s lips.

“Yours!” Louis shouts again, practically jumping up onto his toes, the hum of vodka and Red Bull and his nerves - _my god I am really doing this_ \- keeping him from being still.

The Guy, now Tall Guy, steps back as much as he’s able and gives Louis a considering sort of look. Louis looks back up at him, features schooled into the indifference he’d been practising in the mirror all afternoon, and thinks _please please please_ as hard as he can.

_I just want to be numb._

And eventually, after such a long tortuous time of listening to his heartbeat pound and pound and pound in his ears, Tall Guy says, “Alright.”

Louis’s heart stops, starts again when Tall Guy takes his arm and begins to lead him through the press of people to the exit and then out onto the sidewalk.

The air outside is cool, borderline _cold_ , but it feels so nice on Louis’s hot face and the backs of his hot, sweaty hands. And it’s so free of the pressure of other people that Louis can’t help but take in one big gulp of it, disguising it as a cough behind his hand.

“Alright?” Tall Guy says again, and Louis nods. “I live close by. We could walk if you wanted?”

“Okay,” Louis says, a little thinly. Walking is fine, absolutely. More than even. Maybe by the time they get to...wherever Tall Guy lives he’ll have walked his nerves clean off.

He lets Tall Guy take his arm, managing to swipe his hand across his trousers first to get the damp off, and he listens as Tall Guy natters on about the weather and the upcoming election, which, Louis isn’t even eligible to vote in that for another year, so he just makes random noises in agreement until they’ve reached Tall Guy’s flat.

It’s a nice flat, for however small and cluttered it is.

“Soz about the mess,” Tall Guy says, turning on the lights and kicking a pile of papers out of the way. “Didn’t expect I’d be having someone over or I’d have tidied up.”

“It’s okay,” Louis says, voice low and soft but thankfully _not_ shaking. “My place is a tip.”

He’s so glad he didn’t accidentally say _my room._

His room with his DRFC posters still up and his maths revision untouched on his desk.

“Bedroom’s through there,” Tall Guy says, gesturing toward the corridor, and Louis immediately heads in that direction, slowly unzipping his coat. “But I could get you coffee or tea first?”

Louis looks back at Tall Guy, still stood there in his living room biting his lip, and he shakes his head. “No thank you,” he says, proud of how even he still sounds.

 _I am doing this_.

He turns back around and steels himself, juts his chin out.

_I am really fucking doing this._

He gets his coat unzipped all the way and shrugs it off, tossing it somewhere on the bedroom floor. Tall Guy comes in behind him, squeezing past, and Louis can hear him stumbling over things in the dark, uttering soft little curses as he makes his way over to what must be the lamp, since suddenly it flickers to life, bathing the room in a warm glow.

Louis allows himself to have a moment where he thinks about how nice this is, how nice Tall Guy seems to be, and he even allows himself to wish it could be real, that he’s not here for _another_ reason, that he’d actually properly met Tall Guy somewhere that wasn’t a club he’d snuck into and they’d dated and now they were doing _that_ because they were so sheerly into each other.

But he reminds himself that that’s not what this is at all, and he locks that foolishly sentimental part of him back away before turning to the buttons on his top and beginning to undo them. He’s got them just about all undone when Tall Guy comes over and takes Louis in his arms.

“You’re sure?” he asks, hesitant for a reason Louis can’t suss out, and Louis is praying, praying, _praying_ that Tall Guy hasn’t figured out his age and his inexperience. Louis nods, and Tall Guy bends down to claim his lips in a kiss. Louis’s hands fall away from his buttons, and he grabs onto Tall Guy’s waist, pulling him close.

Tall Guy, it turns out, is a marvel with his tongue and with his hands, currently occupied as they are with Louis’s bum. Louis gasps and sinks his teeth into Tall Guy’s bottom lip, tugging and pulling and moving his arms to grab onto Tall Guy’s shoulders.

“Bed,” Tall Guy rasps out, and Louis nods against his forehead, resting as it’s come to do against Louis’s own.

He lets Tall Guy shimmy him out of his trousers and his top and his pants, and he watches, open-mouthed, as Tall Guy gets out of his own.

Tall Guy has quite a hairy chest, the chains of his necklaces dangling down between his pecs, and Louis steps forward and runs a tentative hand over it, gasping again when he’s pulled into another kiss.

And he goes easily when Tall Guy spins him around and walks him backward to the bed, falling down onto it when his knees hit the edge of the mattress. He scoots around, finding a pillow to prop himself up on, and then Tall Guy’s over him, necklaces hanging and very lightly scraping Louis’s chest, his pupils blown, and he’s bending down, down, down to kiss Louis again and again and again.

It’s... _heavenly_ and it’s _electric_ , sending sparks up and down his body with every touch of Tall Guy’s hands and his mouth _._ It’s _nothing_ he’s ever done before, and if Louis didn’t have other plans, other _ideas_ , he’d be content to do this all day, but as it is...

“Got a rubber?” he asks, and Tall Guy pulls away, nods, and begins rummaging in a nearby drawer.

And whilst he’s searching for a condom and, hopefully, lube, Louis studies the ceiling, trying to will himself back to the place he was hours and hours and hours ago when he’d concocted this entire scheme.

 _I’ll get it done_ , he thinks. _It’ll be done, and I won’t be a virgin anymore and I’ll know what it’s like. It’ll be done._

Tall Guy comes back with a condom and lube - _thank god_ \- and Louis watches as he’s drizzling the slick over his fingers and moving them to Louis’s bum.

“Alright?” Tall Guy asks again, and once again, Louis nods.

_I am doing this._

But then, just when the _very tip_ of Tall Guy’s finger is breaching him, his resolve fails, absolutely _fails_ , and he shoots straight up.

Shoots straight up in bed, knocking into Tall Guy’s forehead.

The pain is bright, blinding, and oh so clear.

“What the-” Tall Guy says, rubbing at his head. But he moves, allowing Louis to get out from under him, which Louis does, scrambling out of bed and right in the direction of his clothes. He pulls on his pants, and he’s fumbling with the flies on his trousers when he hears Tall Guy say:

“You alright love?”

Louis _isn’t_ , but he’s not saying so, and he wills his shaking hands to do up his flies. He gets that sorted, and he’s reaching for his top when he feels a hand on his arm.

He really, truly jumps.

Tall Guy’s there at his elbow, pants on and a worried expression writ across his face.

“You’re not alright,” he says, letting go of Louis’s arm and studying him, a dark look in his eyes.

 _Please don’t be angry_ , Louis thinks, hands shaking still as he’s trying to do up the buttons of his top.

But his hands are shaking too badly to manage it, and Tall Guy’s staring at him, so Louis just drops them to his sides, clenching them into fists.

And he _hates_ that he has to say this, but he thinks Tall Guy deserves the truth. Tall Guy’s been nothing but good to him so far.

“I haven’t done this before,” he says, closing his eyes.

“Never?” he hears Tall Guy ask.

Louis shakes his head.

He hates this next part even more.

“I’m seventeen,” he admits, hanging his head and waiting for the wrath to come.

He hears a very sharp intake of breath to his left, and then, instead of the slap or _worse_ , he hears:

“Go sit at the table in the kitchen. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Louis nods, because _what else can he do?_ and his top still hanging open, he heads back down the corridor and into the dimly lit kitchen area. He bumps his shins against...something, and fumbling around a bit, he finds the back of a chair - _thankfully_ \- and sinks into it.

Tall Guy doesn’t take very long to join him. Louis hears him coming up the corridor, stopping at a sink somewhere along the way given the sound of running water, and then shortly he’s there, dressed again in his trousers and a t-shirt he hadn’t been wearing earlier. He hasn’t got his shoes or socks on, though, and that, somehow, makes Louis feel a little more at ease.

He still winces, though, when Tall Guy clicks the light on over the cooker, flooding the little dinette area with light.

And he’s waiting, waiting, waiting for his vision to clear when he hears Tall Guy ask from where he’s still stood over to Louis’s right:

“You, I dunno, want a sandwich or something?”

_A...sandwich?_

Louis shakes his head. “No thanks,” he manages to squeak out.

“Water?” Tall Guy asks, and that, that might be alright, so Louis nods his head in assent.

“Please,” he puts in for good effort, and he’s soon rewarded with a glass sat in front of him, filled almost to the top with crystal clear water. He takes a sip and then a few great big gulps, only stopping when he feels a hand once again on his arm.

“Easy now,” Tall Guy’s saying, taking the glass from him and setting it down on the table before taking a seat himself. “Drink that too fast and you’ll be ill. Have a break alright?”

Louis nods, begins studying his fingers.

“So,” Tall Guy says, after a very long, very awkward, moment of utter quiet.. “Seventeen?”

Louis can’t say anything, just nods.

He hears another sharp intake of breath and a very soft “ _Christ_.”

“I’m so sorry,” he says, trying and failing to swallow down the tears that’ve sprung up. He wipes at his eyes furiously before Tall Guy can really notice.

“Don’t be sorry,” he hears, and then, after a pause, “how ‘bout you tell me your name for a start?”

“Louis,” Louis says, not looking up at Tall Guy but at the pile of post scattered across the table.

“I’m Nicholas,” Tall Guy says, and _Nicholas_. 

_That is such a nice name_ , Louis thinks. A nice name for a nice person. 

“Most people call me Nick though.”

That’s alright too.

“Listen, Louis,” Tall Guy, Nick, says, after another very long moment of silence has passed. “You are very lucky it was me. Someone else might have...hurt you and not even thought twice about it.”

Louis nods, because _Nick is right_ , and he looks back down at his hands in his lap.

“And it’s not my concern what you do with your sex life, well, it is if you’re trying to get me to have sex with you and you’re underage,but there’s something I want to know.”

Louis looks up.

Nick’s studying his face, chin propped on his hand and eyebrows furrowed in concentration like he’s actually trying to _find_ something there.

“This would have been your first time right?”

Louis nods again. S'only fair to tell him.

“So why didn’t you want it to be special? Why do it with some stranger you picked up instead of your little sixth form boyfriend? I mean, you _are_ fit, even if I kinda feel like a creep now having just told you that, but there’s got to be someone your own age you can, well, you know, do it with.”

“There isn’t,” Louis says, voice low and thick before he clears his throat and tries again. “There’s not anyone like me at school. It’s just me, and I wanted....I wanted to know what it was like, wanted to know how to...do it so I’d be good when I did meet someone like me.”

“I don’t believe there’s not someone for you at your school,” Nick says, and Louis is about to protest that there _isn’t_ , there really isn’t, when Nick adds, “But I know what it’s like to _feel_ like you’re the only one, and it’s really scary, you know, to put yourself out there so other people will _know._ I take it you’re not out?”

Louis shakes his head. “My mum and my stepdad know, and they’re alright about it, but at school there’s these guys and they’re always saying things like how I’m a fairy and other not so nice names just on account of how I’m in drama and such even though I’m better at footie than them most of the time, and I don’t...want them to be right, you know? Not like I’m ashamed, because I’m not, but I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of being right about me.”

Nick nods. “Always hated guys like that.”

“Were you out when you were in school?”

Nick nods again. “Hard not to be, looking like me and acting like me.”

“You don’t look so bad,” Louis is brave enough to admit.

Nick smiles at him. “Back then I did. Was fat and had bad hair.”

Louis smiles back. “Glad you got that sorted then,” and once he realises what he’s said, he adds, quickly, “I meant about the hair. You’ve...you’ve got really nice hair is what I meant.”

Nick, thankfully, laughs. “It’s alright Louis. It was a long time ago and I’m mostly over it.”

And because Louis thinks he can, he asks, “How long ago?”

“You’re really just wondering how old I am aren’t you?”

Louis nods.

“I’m 24,” Nick says, smirking for a bit until his face suddenly sobers. "You know I could have got into a lot of trouble if we'd gone through with it and someone found out."

"Age of consent is 16," Louis points out, but judging by the frown on Nick’s face he isn’t having it.

“People would have said I was taking advantage of you," Nick says. "And I'm not the sort of person who takes advantage of people so you can imagine I wouldn’t want that said about me. Especially if they'd been right."

Louis doesn’t understand. “How is it taking advantage if it's my idea?"

"Because you're so young," Nick says, holding up a hand when Louis starts to protest. “I know you think it's what you really want, but can you honestly say you wouldn’t have regretted it later?"

And Louis, he _can't_ say he wouldn't have regretted it later, but at the same time Nick seems like an alright sort, he’s been very kind so far, so it might have been perfectly fine in the end.

And Nick must catch on to his indecision because he says, "If you’re having doubts then it's probably not the best thing. I know you think it's what you want or wanted, but if you’re unsure, especially about something like this, then you really shouldn't go through with it until you know 100% it's what you want and you're willing to accept the consequences. And I'm not just talking about who you end up doing it with but there’s other things to consider like, did you even bring a condom?"

Louis shakes his head. He hadn’t. 

His face is beginning to burn, and he hangs his head.

“Hey,” he hears Nick say and he looks back up, not at Nick, but at the post again. “I didn’t mean to go off on you like that, but sex is kind of, well, it’s important to me, and I don’t just do it with anyone.”

“You were about to do it with me,” Louis says, and it doesn’t even come out as challenging or sullen his voice is so small.

He feels so small.

“I didn’t know how young you were did I?” Nick says. “And, besides, like I said, you’re fit, and who’s to say I wouldn’t have tried to convince you to stay?”

“Really?” Louis says, head popping up to look Nick in the eye. “You wouldn’t have just kicked me out after?”

“Maybe if you snored or something I’d have made you go sleep on the sofa,” Nick says, and Louis notices that he’s begun to idly tap out a rhythm on the table. And right, he probably ought to be going. “But I definitely would have wanted you to stay.”

Louis has got his bum just lifted out of the seat, but that last phrase has got him plonking back down into it.

 _Stay_.

“Do you mind if I do?” he asks, adding when he sees Nick’s eyebrows lift, “Do you mind if I stay just for a bit? It’s just, it’s been nice this. I don’t really have anyone I can talk to about these things.”

Nick studies him for a moment and then says, “Yeah alright. You can stay as long as you like, unless you’ve got to be back at a certain time.”

“No curfew,” Louis says. “Said I was staying at a mate’s so I’m not expected back until tomorrow.”

“So what would you have done if whoever you’d wound up with didn’t want you staying at theirs?”

Louis shrugs. “Hadn’t thought about that either,” fiddling with the hem of his top and deciding to finally do up his buttons. “Probably would have just snuck back in and told my folks I’d had a row with Zayn. That’s my best mate.”

“Does he know? About you?”

“He might,” Louis says. “He’s real observant. An artist so he notices things.”

“Have you ever thought about just telling him?”

“Yeah, but it’s like you said. It’s scary putting yourself out there like that, and I’m sure Zayn doesn’t give a fuck, but I’m just...not ready to tell him right now.”

“You’ll tell him in due time.”

Louis snorts, continues doing up his buttons. “Maybe by the time we’re in uni I will.”

“You two going together?”

“Gonna try. His family’s like mine, not a lot of money, so we’ll probably wind up going somewhere close by. We’ve been talking about getting us a flat of our own, get jobs so we can pay for it and our folks won’t have to look after us so much anymore.”

“That’s...actually really nice of you, both of you. Although if you’re planning on living together you really ought to tell him beforehand. So you don’t wind up surprising him one night.”

“Did you ever do that? Surprise someone?”

“My mates have long since stopped being surprised by me, but the answer is no, I’ve never brought anybody home that my mates have been all judgy and ‘who’s that then?’”

It’s Louis’s turn to lift an eyebrow. “Never?”

Nick blinks at him for a couple of seconds before his face breaks into that wide smile Louis is increasingly growing fond of seeing. 

“Alright fine you got me,” he says. “There’s been loads. Well not loads. I’m not a slag. But there’s been one or two where I’m sure my mates were seriously judging my taste in men.”

“And what is your taste in men?”

“Cheeky aren’t you?”

Louis shrugs. “Just curious is all.”

“Curious is what got you in this mess.”

“Not a mess,” adding when he sees Nick’s look of incredulity, _ha! vocab,_ “You said! You said I was lucky it was you, so not a mess.”

“Yeah alright I did say that,” Nick says, stretching his arms out in front of him. “Listen” and Louis’s heart stops for a minute, until Nick continues with, “You want tea? I’m parched and was thinking about putting the kettle on.”

“Tea’d be good,” Louis says, watching as Nick gets out of his seat and heads into the kitchen proper. “No sugar though. Just milk.”

Nick gives him a salute and starts filling the kettle with water from the tap. “Milk’s in the fridge,” he says with a nod of his head in that direction.

Louis is up in a flash, grateful he’s not got to sit awkwardly at Nick’s table whilst Nick’s fiddling with the tea things, and he eventually finds the milk behind a sad-looking cucumber, getting it out and setting it down very closely to the bubbling kettle. He’s not sure if he’s supposed to go sit back down at the table, and truth is, he’d rather be standing, so that’s what he does, stands there, leaned against Nick’s counter with his arms crossed, right at Nick’s elbow watching his hands work.

“I’ve only got Twinings,” Nick says, focusing on the kettle and nudging at one of the mugs. “Haven’t been to the shops in a while.”

“Twinings is fine.” This close he can see a fine shake run across Nick’s hands. “I am sorry,” he says, not looking up. “I should have told you how old I was from the beginning. Thank you for...stopping and well, for everything really.”

Nick’s hands still completely, and it isn’t until the kettle clicks off that he starts moving again.

“It wasn’t a problem,” he says, pouring water over the tea bags and setting the kettle back down on its rest. He very slowly slides one of the mugs over in Louis’s direction, and Louis turns around and takes it, wrapping his hands around it as the tea steeps.

“Would it be a problem if I called you sometime?” Louis asks, more to his mug than to Nick. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Nick shake his head.

“No,” he says, then, clearing his throat, he adds, “I don’t see how that’d be a problem. Just to talk, right?”

“Right.”

“Then yeah that’d be alright.”

“Thanks.”

They prepare their tea and drink it in silence after that, still stood at the counter with only an infinitesimal amount of space between them. Louis has turned back around and is staring idly at the clock above the cooker when he finally notices the time.

“I’ve just missed the night bus,” he says, and Nick turns around to look at the clock with him.

“Guess that means you’re staying the night after all,” Nick says, going back to his tea.

“You don’t mind?”

“Well you’re not going out at this hour. All kinds of dodgy types around this late, or early, rather.”

“Alright _Dad_.”

“Not funny.”

“Sorry.”

Nick doesn’t look too upset though, finishing his tea, setting his mug in the sink and heading back down the corridor. Louis sets his own mug in the sink once he’s slurped his down and follows him, coming up behind him as he’s stood in the doorway to his bedroom, hands on his hips and obviously trying to work something out, judging by the look on his face.

“You can take the bed,” he says, staring down at Louis’s coat that’s still on the floor, which, right, manners, and Louis bends down and scoops it up, draping it over his arm.

“Where are you gonna sleep?”

“Got the futon in the other room,” Nick says, and the expression on his face isn’t a particularly excited one at the prospect.

“We could share?” Louis asks, playing with his coat collar, running his finger over it. “I mean, I don’t want to put you out of your bed, and you’ve already seen me naked, so…”

Nick snorts out a laugh and runs a hand through his hair. “That I have,” he says. “That I have.”

“I’ll keep myself to myself.”

“Alright fine. You want something to sleep in?”

“I have a feeling you’re going to give me something to wear anyway.”

“You _are_ a cheeky monkey.”

“That’s me!” Louis says, beaming, as he follows Nick into the room proper and takes a seat on the bed. “And also I hate sleeping naked, just so you know.”

“Me too,” Nick says from somewhere deep in his closet. “‘S like everything’s all over the place and not where it actually goes,” he adds, coming out with a t-shirt and joggers and tossing them at Louis. Louis catches them easily enough and holds out the t-shirt to examine it.

“Britney?"

"She's iconic."

"If you say so." But Louis still puts it on, sliding out of his top and pulling it over his head quickly so as to get the whole business done with. He’s standing up to unfasten his trousers when he hears Nick say, “I'll just be in the bathroom then."

Louis just nods and lets Nick squeeze past him, and he slips out of his trousers and into the joggers just as quickly as he'd changed his top, and he’s sat on the bed again, hands folded in his lap, when Nick returns.

“I normally sleep on the left," Nick says, after a bit of hesitation, and Louis obligingly scoots back to the other side of the bed, yanking the corner of the duvet out from under his bum and pulling it over himself.

“I like your duvet," he says, fingering the seam.

Nick, thankfully, smiles, all traces of tension gone.

"I like hedgehogs," he says, reaching over to click off the lamp. “And it was marked down at Asda so I couldn't not get it."

"Mine's navy blue," Louis says into the dark. “It’s got anchors on it."

"I'm sure there's a joke about seamen there."

"I'm sure there is, but you'll be keeping that to yourself."

"You're a bit of a bossy one, aren't you?"

Louis shrugs even though Nick can’t see him. “More like I've usually got a shite brain to mouth filter."

"Well at least you realise it."

"What can I say? I'm a very self-aware young man."

"You're young alright."

"I'll be having none of that either Granddad."

"What did I say earlier about not funny?"

"You're only 24."

"You're 17."

"It’s only seven years."

"Seven years is a long time."

“Not that long."

"Long enough."

"I'm just asking you to be my mate Nick. That’s all."

"Okay," and Louis thinks he hears Nick gust out something that sounds suspiciously like a sigh of relief.

“Don’t sound so relieved."

"I'm sorry, it's just...tonight's been a lot, alright? I'm not even sure I'm done processing it."

"What’s there to process?"

Louis feels a movement like Nick’s waving a hand around.

“Just...you. Young you, who’s very fit but also very seventeen, who I saw naked and can't not see, and I just...I don’t know how to deal with that, alright?"

"So don't. You said you'd be my mate I could talk to about things, so just do that."

"I didn’t say anything about being your mate," Nick says, and Louis feels something like dread crawling up from his stomach. “But okay, I did say we could talk about things, so I guess that makes us mates."

"Don't sound so sure either."

"If I say we're mates will you go to sleep so we can deal with this properly in the morning?"

"No promises I'll go to sleep, but I'll stop talking if that’s what you’re really asking."

"I don’t...I don’t mind your talking. I just really, really want to go to sleep and deal with this when it's light out."

"I don’t think there’s really anything to deal with, but alright, I'll be quiet so you can go to sleep."

"Thank you," and then after a beat of silence, "Goodnight New Mate Louis."

Louis stifles a giggle and the sudden urge to thump Nick in the shins.

“'Night New Mate Nicholas."

~*~

Nick’s looking a lot better in the morning. At least a lot less like he’s expecting the police to break his door down any minute.

"Sleep well?" Louis asks, dropping into the same chair at the kitchen table that he’d occupied last night and drawing his knees up to his chin. It’s a bit harder to manage now that he's back in his trousers and button-up, having not wanted to linger too long in Nick’s clothes in case Nick had changed his mind, but he still gets his legs like he likes them and peeks through his fringe at Nick stood staring into space by the kettle.

Nick starts and nearly drops his mug, setting it down very carefully and finally looking at Louis.

“I ought to be asking you that," he says, trying for a smile.

“So ask me then," Louis says, reaching around his legs and fiddling with his shoelaces.

Nick rolls his eyes. That’s a little better. “Sleep alright then?"

"I did, thanks," Louis says. “But you still haven't said how _you_ slept."

"Like a baby," Nick says. “I, um, I tend to sleep better when someone’s in bed with me, so yeah, last night I slept really really well."

"So not like a baby then," Louis says, adding when he sees Nick’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, "my mum's a midwife. She says it's wrong to say you slept like a baby when you say you slept well because babies actually don't sleep all that well. They just sleep a lot."

"You and your mum talk a lot about babies?"

Louis nods enthusiastically. “I _love_ babies. Sometimes when I get bored or low I go to my mum's work and she lets me help her look after them."

"Interesting thing to do if you're bored."

Louis shrugs. “I like it. And I'm thinking about being a midwife one day. Or a paediatric nurse, so it's like good proper experience for me. Why, what do you do when you're bored?"

"Don't hang around in hospital chatting with the babies, that's for sure."

"So what do you do?"

Nick shrugs. “ Hang out with friends mostly. Was thinking about getting a dog but I'm never home in the evening."

"Out a lot?"

"Work."

"What do you do?"

Nick makes a face. “I work at an out-of-hours service. I thought it’d be fun because I'd get to talk on the phone a lot, but it’s dead boring actually."

"Sounds dead boring."

"It is dead boring," Nick repeats. “So stay in school."

"Why? You drop out or something?"

"Yes, but I don’t want to talk about that right now."

"Alright. So what _do_ you want to talk about?"

"Just," Nick says, putting a hand to his hair and rubbing at his scalp. “Don’t you think this is all a bit weird?"

"What’s 'this'?"

"This! Us!" Nick says, waving his free hand in Louis’s general direction. “You sitting there like last night didn't happen, like we weren't seconds away from doing... _that_ with each other."

"Are you still hung up on that?"

"Yes! And I think I've got good reason to be."

"I think you're overreacting."

"I think you're underreacting."

"It’s possible. But the way I see it is I did something really stupid last night, like really, impossibly stupid, but you, you fixed it, kept it from getting bad, and now we're mates."

"So you're just going to ignore the bit where we almost had sex?"

Louis doesn’t mean to, but he turns a particularly brilliant shade of crimson.

“Um," he says, swallowing. "Yes? I think that might be best, for both our sakes. Just pretend it didn't happen, yeah?"

"I can't pretend it didn't happen Louis," Nick says, and Louis feels all the blood very abruptly drain from his face. “But I'd really like to."

"So why don't you? Try, I mean. S'got to be better than driving yourself mental about it. It happened, it was a mistake, it won’t happen again, move along."

"You're awfully wise for half ten in the morning."

"You mean I'm awfully right for half ten in the morning."

Nick appears to consider it. “Maybe a little bit right."

"Still right though."

"Okay fine. You’re right. We'll just...pretend it didn't happen."

"What didn’t happen?"

Nick gives him a disbelieving look before he laughs and his face softens into a smile. 

Louis really likes his smile.

“Exactly," Nick says, turning to fiddle with the tea things. "Make you a cup?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

~*~

Louis leaves about an hour or so later, Nick’s number programmed into his phone and his number programmed into Nick’s.

And he doesn’t waste any time texting him.

_Made it home okay. Thanks again._

Nick's response is immediate: _Anytime._

And Nick _is_ as good as his word.

Anytime Louis needs to talk to him, he's there. Even if it's just about trivial things like Louis sneaking in his striped socks under his uniform trousers, and Nick telling him that the polka dotted ones are much better, more _flash._

_Flash isn’t something I’m interested in Nicholas. Also, that’s not an actual slang word._

_Is so._

_Isn’t._

_Aimee and Ian say it is._

_I don’t know Aimee and Ian, but I think they’re humouring you._

_They wouldn’t._

followed about an hour later by

_Okay so you were right. They were humouring me. Traitors._

Louis has to smile at that, how much of a giant _nerd_ his new mate’s turned out to be, and again, he’s so thankful that _that’s_ who he’d ended up with.

And speaking of mates, _what are Aimee and Ian like? Can I meet them sometime?_

It takes a very long time for Nick to respond, so long that Louis is beginning to wonder if his message got lost somehow.

 _Aimee is very loud. Ian is...not as loud, but they’re great, both of them._

Nick doesn’t answer his other question. Louis, for once, doesn’t push.

~*~

But he does show up on Nick’s doorstep about a couple of weeks later, fuming.

“Shitting fucking _wanker_ ,” he says, stomping right past Nick and flinging his rucksack onto Nick’s sofa and dropping down in a huff beside it.

Nick doesn’t do much outside of blink at him, open-mouthed, until he eventually asks, “Who is? Me?”

“ _No_ ,” Louis says, a bit sharply. “Jason _fucking_ Todd."

"Who's Jason Todd?"

"He's a fuckin' wanker is what he is. Tosser sits in front of me in maths and keeps _saying_ such shit about me being a poofter and letting Zayn do me up the arse and how I’m gonna get kicked off the team when the coach finds out. Not if. _When_."

It makes him so angry he kicks Nick’s coffee table, hard enough so that it sends up a screech, but then he remembers he’s not a barbarian like Jason fucking Todd and moves it back where it was, muttering out a "Sorry."

Nick's still been gaping at him this entire time, but at the sound of Louis’s tiny little apology he snaps to and says, “No don’t...I mean don't kick my coffee table like that again, but you never said it was that bad. At your school."

"It wasn't. Just recently decided he wanted to really be an _arsehat_ and in fucking _maths_. Can’t at least let me get the fuck _outside_ before he starts in with his shit."

“Have you told anyone?”

“I’m not fucking _telling_ anyone Nicholas, and don’t act like you would have either if it’d been you. You haven’t been out of school _that_ long.”

Nick nods and drops down onto the sofa beside him.

“Yeah alright,” he says, clasping his hands in front of him and staring at his thumbs. “Wouldn’t have done. But if he, you know, starts actually hitting you and threatening you, then you really shouldn’t just sit there and take it either.”

“So what do you suggest I do?”

Nick shrugs. “Don’t know. Just...be careful I guess. Don’t get yourself in situations where you'll get hurt or get in trouble on account of him. It’s not worth it.”

Louis considers it, turns to study their reflections in the blank television screen. “D’you really think they’d kick me off the team?” He sees Nick look up at him, and he adds, “If I just told them first, that I am...that way so Jason Todd’s got nothing, d’you think they’d kick me out?”

“I don’t know,” Nick says again. “But I don’t think they can...legally. I’m sure that’s not allowed.”

“What if they did it anyway? Even if it isn’t allowed?”

Nick huffs out a laugh. “Think that’s when you go see a solicitor darling.”

_Darling._

Louis would be lying if he said his cheeks didn’t turn a little pink at that.

Not surprisingly, it gets a bit quiet after. Louis can hear the sound of birds outside and the distant buzz of someone cutting grass.

And eventually, just to break the silence, he says, “Don’t know if my mum’s got the money for a solicitor. But I can still look into it I suppose.”

“There’s Legal Aid,” Nick says, and his relief at the subject change is almost audible in his voice.

“Oh yeah you’re right.” Louis drags his rucksack over and immediately goes digging in it for a biro. He finds one eventually, without its cap and tangled up in a gum wrapper, but it works enough for him to scribble _Legal Aid_ on one of his folders so he’ll remember later. “Thanks for the advice.”

Nick snorts. “No one’s ever thanked me for advice before. You’re, like, the first.”

“Never?”

“Usually I’m the one needing it.”

“What for?” Louis says, moving on to scribbling circles and lazy figure eights. Nick doesn’t reply right away, and that’s when Louis looks up.

Nick’s got his hands clasped and he’s looking at his thumbs again.

“Or maybe we could take turns.”

“Take turns?” Nick’s looking at him then, eyebrows furrowed.

“Yeah,” Louis says, dropping his biro and his folder back into his bag and shoving the whole lot over to the side and then onto the floor. “Like, you gave me good advice so I could give you some.”

“Advice? From you?”

Louis feels his heart drop down somewhere and land in his dull, dull belly. “It was just an offer,” he says eventually. “Not like you’ve got to take it.”

“I know,” Nick says, finally unclasping his hands and running one of them through his hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t...mean it like that. It’s just...the thing I need advice about right now isn’t something you can help me with. That’s all.”

Oh.

“Well that’s alright,” Louis says, even though he’s _dying_ to know what it is. “Wanna play FIFA instead?”

That gets a smile out of Nick.

“Don’t have a copy,” he says, and _what_?

“How can you not have a copy of FIFA? You’re a lad. It’s like...a requirement.”

And that makes Nick laugh. 

“I _did_ have a copy,” he says. “Turns out I’m rubbish at it, and one night we were playing it and I lost so badly that I got the disc out of the player and snapped it right in two.”

“Didn’t peg you for a sore loser.”

“I was also very, very, as Aimee would say, piss-ass-drunk.”

“Ah. You might want to watch that.”

Nick just stares at him, eyes wide. It makes Louis laugh.

“See?” he says, throwing his arms out. “Full of good advice, me.”

“You’re full of something all right,” Nick says, but it’s kindly and he’s biting his lip so Louis doesn’t really take offence this time.

And anywayyyy…

“I’m not full of food,” he retorts, suddenly taken with the idea he’d like to be and knocking his knee into Nick’s.

Nick starts but he recovers quickly enough and moves his knee away out of reach. “Feeding you too am I?”

“Why Nicholas,” Louis says, affecting a bright, bright, so very genteel tone. “I thought you’d _never_ ask.”

~*~

Louis does not like the food at Nick’s flat.

He’s sure to tell him so.

“All you’ve got is this...healthy stuff,” he says, holding a bag of granola very gingerly between his forefinger and thumb and giving Nick a _look_.

Nick’s giving him a _look_ back.

“That one’s got chocolate in it,” he says, pouting a little.

Louis raises an eyebrow and turns the bag around to study the ingredients listed on the back.

“You’re a liar Nicholas,” he says eventually, having read them all. Nick’s about to protest when Louis shoves the bag right in his face and points to one word.

“ _Carob_ ,” he says. “It’s got carob, not chocolate.”

“How’d you even know what carob is?”

“Went to a party a very long time ago. Kid was allergic to dairy so we had cake with carob in it instead of chocolate. It was... _vile_. Was scraping the taste of it off my tongue for _weeks._ ”

“Was it my birthday party?”

Louis knows he must look confused, because Nick adds, “I’m lactose intolerant. Not supposed to have dairy so Mum would try to get by with carob cake when I was younger.”

Louis actually thinks about it, even wonders for a second or two, but then, “No. Wasn’t you. Think I’d remember hair like that.”

Nick looks vaguely offended. “Haven’t always had hair like this you know. And I thought you liked it. You said so.”

Louis is laughing into his palm, but he sobers up quickly and nods. He had said so, _that night_. “I do like it. It’s just funny imagining seven-year-old you with a quiff.”

Nick barks out a laugh. It makes his face break into a grin, and Louis, Louis finds that he really, really likes the way it looks.

And that is, that is not good.

Not good at all.

Because they’re mates now. Louis is sure of that, but he _knows_ Nick isn’t up for anything more than just being his mate, and Louis isn’t foolish enough to go giving his heart to someone who quite clearly doesn’t want it.

Which is why he shoves any and all thoughts of how much he likes Nick’s face down, down, down, locks it up tight and sticks a goblin in front like in Gringotts, and demands that Nick take him to McDonald’s.

Nick only looks too happy to oblige.

~*~

Things aren’t much better at McDonald’s though.

Nick doesn’t do more than fidget with his straw wrapper once they’re sat in an out of the way booth, and Louis is tired of trying to get his attention by throwing his chips at him. 

But he does finally get Nick’s attention by stealing _his_ chips since Louis’s are all over the floor and in Nick’s lap and a couple are even in Nick’s hair.

“‘Bout time you came back to Earth,” Louis says, around a mouthful of cheeseburger, when Nick gives him a foul look.

“Just been thinking, thanks,” Nick says, even as he’s sliding the ketchup over.

“Well it’s making your forehead all wrinkled so stop it.”

If anything, Nick’s look gets even fouler.

“Not wrinkled,” he says, tossing a chip at Louis, who somehow manages to catch it mid-air and dunks it right away into his puddle of ketchup.

“What’s got into you?” he asks, once he’s swallowed.

“Nothing,” Nick says, automatically, and Louis, finally, gives him a good thump in the shins. 

“Don’t lie to me Nicholas,” he says. “Getting real tired of it to be honest, so c’mon. Out with it.”

“Alright, _alright_ ,” Nick says, leaning forward and running his hand, like Louis has noticed he always seems to do when he’s nervous, through his hair and dislodging one of the chips. He gives it a little glare of its own and starts toying with it, most decidedly _not_ looking up at Louis. “I just don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Doing?”

Nick looks at him then, right through his long, long eyelashes. “With you. I don’t know what I’m doing with you.”

Louis heaves out a great, big sigh. He can’t help it. He’d thought they’d settled this a long time ago.

But then, it hits him. Almost like one of those cartoon light bulbs goes off right above his head.

“Is there something you’d _like_ to be doing with me?”

Nick sits up straight at that, white as paper. Opens his mouth and closes it again.

“I’m not offering Nicholas,” Louis says, after a very long, rather uncomfortable moment of silence stretches out, and Nick begins to act like he’s going for his inhaler. “I’m _asking_ , and I think you should at least tell me the truth.”

Nick nods, and Louis watches as he actually does take his inhaler out and sets it on the table in front of him. His hands are shaking again, but Louis doesn’t touch, even though he thinks he’d like to.

Would like to very much indeed.

“I can’t...I can’t say it here.”

“So let’s go and you can say it elsewhere.”

“Alright,” Nick says, and they begin cleaning up their mess, crumbling wrappers into balls and even collecting the chips that’d landed on the floor and in the booth.

Louis is nothing if not well-mannered after all, although he does spend an inordinate amount of time afterward scrubbing his hands in the lavatory. Nick’s not there waiting for him after he comes out, and Louis’s heart stutters for almost an entire minute before he sees him stood outside the glass exit door. Once Louis has joined him they make their way in...some direction that eventually shapes up into Louis’s favourite park, the one with the little duck pond.

There aren’t any ducks, too cold probably, but there is a bench, and that’s where they head, taking seats that are just close enough for them to not to have to whisper but not so far apart that they’re immediately audible to anyone else.

Nick begins, almost right away. “You know how we met, right?”

Louis resists the urge to snort, but he does say, “Was there too Nicholas. Kinda remember it and all.”

Nick tosses him a look. It’s not a very pleased one. "And you know how I'm still hung up on the sex thing."

"I thought we'd discussed that. Thought we decided we'd pretend it didn't happen. You said you'd _try_."

"I did try. At least I thought I did, but I don’t think it worked, and I just...I don’t know what to do."

Louis is about to say that _he’s_ got no bloody idea what to do, but then it occurs to him that he _does_.

“We decided we'd be mates right?" He waits for Nick’s nod and then he continues, “So let’s just do...that. Mate stuff that isn't me coming round to yours all the time. Like proper going out and doing things, maybe even with your other mates, like, say, Aimee and Ian."

"How's that supposed to work?"

Nick could sound a little less disbelieving.

“Well you don't want to sleep with them do you?"

Nick shakes his head no.

"Way I see it then, you and I get to know each other well enough, like you know them, and then it'll be waaaay too awkward to even think about wanting to see each other naked."

“I don’t think that’s going to work Louis.”

“How do you know? We haven’t even _tried_ it yet.”

“Not much point in trying I think.”

Louis gives him a look. “ _I_ think you’re just being difficult.”

“Me? Difficult?”

“Yes you. Very difficult.”

“Well this isn’t easy is it?”

“I don’t see what’s so _hard_ about it.”

“You don’t...you have no idea.”

“No idea about what?”

“I _fancy_ you Louis. God knows why, but I do. I _like_ having you around and listening to you prattle on about your day and just...how you’re always there even if it’s just on the text and how you don’t let me get lost in my head too much. And that should be enough but it _isn’t_ and it’s...it’s terrifying because you’re _seventeen_ and _I don’t want to take advantage of you_ , make you feel like you _owe_ me something just because I did the decent thing the night we met.”

Nick immediately buries his face in his hands, getting his fingers in his hair, and, Louis can tell by how white his knuckles are, pulling at it a bit. And so he does something that’s probably idiotic, something Nick probably _won’t_ like, but he does it anyway, puts his hand flat on Nick’s back, right between his shoulder blades. Nick flinches, but he doesn’t move away. 

“I think you’re alright too,” Louis says, and he hears Nick huff out a laugh. “Bit weird, what with the carob granola you’ve got in your cupboard, but you’re not, like, a bad person or anything.”

Nick’s shoulders are beginning to shake, and Louis thinks that he’s _crying_. That is, until he realises that Nick’s actually _laughing_. And then he mumbles out something that Louis can’t quite catch.

“Come again?”

“I said,” Nick says, sitting up and rubbing his hands over his face. He looks almost... _manic_ his eyes are so bright when he pulls his hands away. “I said that I don’t eat it. It’s just _there_. In my cupboard. I don’t even know how it got there.”

“How do you…?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Nick says, humour still edging his voice. “Just found it there one morning and didn’t have the heart to throw it out.”

“You...felt bad...for carob.”

“I _did_! Like you said, nobody _likes_ carob, so I didn’t want to throw it out.”

“Nobody likes carob for a reason, remember? You’ve _had_ carob; you know how vile it is.”

“I can’t believe we’re talking about carob now. We’re supposed to be having a serious conversation here, and we’re talking about carob. Nasty carob.”

“But we agree that carob’s nasty. That’s something, yeah?”

“Suppose,” Nick says, clasping his hands and giving Louis a look, a much softer one than before. “It’s a start.”

Louis can’t help his smile at that. And he allows himself to like the one he gets from Nick in return. Doesn’t lock the feeling up with the others behind the goblin for once.

He does lock up the urge to lean over and give Nick a kiss. Locks that up good and tight. He’ll be having none of that, and he’s sure Nick won’t either.

“We can try it,” Nick says eventually, turning back to frown a little at his hands, adding, with a look back at Louis, “meeting my friends. Like you said. Might be good if it’s not just...us by ourselves all the time.”

Louis feels his breath catch, and he tries to release it as noiselessly as possible. He nods, a little stupidly he thinks, and gusts out a “Yeah. Like I said.” He then pastes on a smile and punches Nick ever so lightly in the arm, ignoring the squawk of protest he gets in return. 

“It’ll be great.”

~*~

It isn’t great.

It is as far away from great as it can be.

Nick’s friend Aimee, with the orange hair and, Nick wasn’t lying, a loud mouth, takes one good look at Louis, and says, distaste almost evident, “Who’s this then?”

Nick steps around from where he’d been hovering behind Louis and, speaking mostly to Aimee’s feet, replies, “He’s Louis. He’s a...friend. New friend.”

“Well not that I mind you having new friends,” Aimee says, planting her hands firmly on her hips, “but he’s a little young isn’t he?”

There is absolutely _no way_ Louis is squeaking out that he’s seventeen, no matter how tempting it is.

“He’s um…,” Nick says and then falters, looking to Louis for help, and _damn_.

“My birthday’s in December,” he says, because there’s nothing else he can really do. “Be eighteen then.”

Aimee’s eyebrows shoot straight up into her hairline, and the subsequent look she gives Nick is positively _deadly._

“ _Really_ Nick?” she asks, and it’s almost deafening she’s so loud. “ _Seventeen_?”

Nick blanches and looks down, nodding. Louis thinks he’s going to be sick.

Louis thinks _he’s_ going to be sick.

“We haven’t _done_ anything if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says, stepping closer to Nick like he’s actually going to be able to protect him. “I just...I did something dumb one night, but Nick helped me out, that’s how we met, and he’s been helping me with other stuff ever since, advice and such. That’s all, nothing dodgy.”

“Oh,” Aimee says, her face settling and her eyebrows coming back down. “That’s alright then I suppose, although I don’t know if I believe our Nicholas here is the best person to be taking advice from.”

“ _Hey_ ,” he hears Nick say, and Louis is so relieved he has to stifle a giggle.

“Is that right?” he asks, shooting a sly glance at Nick.

Nick, who’s so red he’s almost purple.

Louis feels so badly for him, and he wishes he could just reach out and grab his hand, but he knows Nick wouldn’t like that, so he sticks his hand in his pocket instead.

“He’s our magical disaster,” Aimee says, and her grin’s every bit as sly.

Louis thinks he might just like her a lot.

“Magical disaster, eh?” he asks. “Do tell.”

Nick buries his face in his hands. 

Aimee obliges.

~*~

“I can’t believe you were taking the piss out of someone for being sick by the road in broad daylight and then you crashed your car and sicked up all over yourself _whilst you were on the phone with your sick friend_. What even is your life Nicholas?”

“A series of unexpected events obviously,” is Nick’s reply, and Louis can’t _breathe_ he’s laughing so hard.

“Obviously,” he repeats, knocking into Nick’s side as they’re on their way back to Nick’s flat, having seen Aimee off at the bus station.

Nick freezes and then gently elbows him back.

 _Progress_ , Louis thinks. It is the smallest, possibly _stupidest_ sign of progress, but Louis is going to count it as progress all the same.

“So that wasn’t too bad was it?” he asks, once they’re on Nick’s doorstep and about to go inside. He adds, when Nick stops fumbling with his keys and looks up at him, “Meeting Aimee. I think it went well, don’t you?”

Nick turns his attention back to his keys. “Better than I expected yeah.”

“So go on then. Tell me how brilliant my idea was,” Louis says, unable to stop himself from smirking.

“It was just Aimee,” Nick says, lowly, as he’s getting his door open. “But yes, I suppose it was a good idea.”

“Why thank you Nicholas. I’m so pleased you agree. So when do I meet the rest?”

Nick just looks at him blankly.

“I know Aimee’s not your only friend,” Louis says, about to follow Nick inside when he’s stopped by Nick throwing an arm out, which, _what_?

“She’s not, and I’m sorry but,” Nick says, and he sounds so _horrible_ all of a sudden. “I just...I’m not feeling so well, so I think I’m gonna call it a night, alright?”

Louis takes a step back, heart thudding in his chest. There’s a lump in his throat, and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to swallow around it, but somehow he does and says, “Yeah. Sure. I’ll just, I’ll text you when I get in alright? Like I always do.”

“Right,” Nick says, and he’s already shutting the door before Louis can even tell him good night.

~*~

He texts Nick when he gets in.

Nick doesn’t respond.

Louis finishes all of his revision, a feat for him, and fucks around on _Dragon’s Crown_ with Zayn until well after midnight, all the while trying and failing to ignore his silent mobile.

He finally chucks it against the wall at 2am and goes to bed.

~*~

When he wakes up the next morning there’s still not been a text off Nick.

He’d located his mobile atop a pile of dirty laundry and plugged it into its charger, hoping the low battery had been the only reason he hadn’t heard the ping of a text coming in.

It hadn’t.

His phone’s just as lifeless as it was the previous evening.

But Louis, he’s alright. 

_If Nick wants to act weird that’s him_ , he thinks, pushing down the growing sense of dread that things are in fact, _not_ okay.

He doesn’t text Nick.

He wants to, but he doesn’t.

He spends the rest of the weekend holed up at Zayn’s, smoking his weed, watching him paint and listening to him talk about his girlfriend.

He doesn’t tell Zayn about Nick.

But he does tell Zayn that he’s gay.

It kinda slips out after about a bowl or two. Louis’s lost count.

Zayn blinks at him for an entire minute before he shrugs and says, “S’alright man,” pulling Louis into a tight, tight hug.

~*~

He comes out to his coach on Monday, figuring since he’s done it with Zayn he might as well get it done at school too.

His coach, surprisingly, cares just about as much as Zayn did, which is to say, not at all.

Once he’s left his coach’s office, he gets out his mobile and pulls up Nick’s contact information, hovers over the text message icon, thinking that if nothing else, he’d send him a little text letting him know what he’s just done and how relieved he is that it turned out alright, how thankful he is to Nick for helping him find just the bit of courage he needed to get it done.

His finger hovers over the text button for a long, long time before he clicks his mobile off and puts it back away in his coat pocket.

~*~

A week passes. 

Nick doesn’t text.

Louis doesn’t drop by.

~*~

Two weeks pass.

~*~

A month.

~*~

It’s raining the day his parents tell him. Because of course it is.

He’s absolutely _soaking_ by the time he reaches Nick’s. He’d run out the door in such a hurry that he’d forgotten to grab an umbrella.

And he hadn’t really had any idea where he’d been headed, but it’s somehow fitting that he’d ended up on Nick’s doorstep, trailing water as Nick lets him in.

He’s shivering, arms wrapped tightly around himself, and he stays put like Nick tells him to whilst he goes off to fetch a towel and dry clothes.

“I got you a jumper and extra socks,” Nick says, placing the bundle in his hands.

Louis mumbles out a “thank you” and follows Nick very slowly to the bathroom, careful not to drip everywhere, sniffling like he’s just been crying, which, he _hasn’t._

He’s just very, very cold.

 _So_ cold.

So cold his hands are shaking as he’s trying to get out of his wet clothes, and he’s making such a hash of it that eventually Nick knocks on the bathroom door, asking him if he’s alright, if he needs... _help_.

And Louis does, is the thing, but he’s so astounded that it’s Nick asking this once that he can’t even reply.

His silence must be telling, though, because, eventually, Nick slowly opens the bathroom door and gently pushes his hands away, helping him peel his soaked top and trousers off, and instantly handing him a towel.

“Let you get your pants,” he says, sounding muffled through another towel he’s placed over Louis’s head to dry his hair.

Louis nods as best he can whilst his head’s in Nick’s hands, and, having finishing drying off his body, he wraps the towel around himself whilst Nick finishes with his hair.

It feels _so good_ , and Louis allows himself just one tiny little second to like it.

But just one second, because Nick’s stepping back, and he’s looking at Louis with such _concern_ that Louis doesn’t want to ruin it.

“Get changed and we’ll talk alright?” Nick says, gathering Louis’s wet things and bundling them together with the towel. Louis nods, and Nick closes the door behind him.

When Louis emerges a few minutes later, clad in an enormous black jumper, joggers, and two pairs of speckle socks, Nick’s waiting for him with a cup of tea.

“On second thought finish that,” he says, handing over the mug, “and we’ll have a sit down and you can tell me all about it.”

“Okay,” Louis says, and he knows it sounds pathetic and small and so very weak, but he doesn’t care, because the mug’s warm in his hands and he’s warm in Nick’s clothes. The tea’s Yorkshire like he likes, probably the remnants of the box he’d brought over weeks and weeks ago.

It somehow makes Louis feel nostalgic when he has a seat on Nick’s sofa and takes a sip of it, just right at the edge of bitter.

Nick’s flat is quiet. The TV’s off and the only sound is the patter of rain from outside.

Louis, of course, has to break it.

“My mum and my stepdad are getting a divorce,” he says, mostly into his milky tea. 

Nick puts a tentative hand on his shoulder.

“I didn’t even know they’d been fighting. Thought things were _fine_ and then they call me into the kitchen. Said they had something to tell me and it was _that_.”

Nick scoots a little closer, moves his hand so that his arm’s draped across Louis’s back, holding him tightly.

“I’m sorry.”

“He’s leaving this weekend, like he can’t wait to get out, _leave_ us, leave _me._ ”

Nick’s moved his arm and is rubbing Louis’s back.

“I thought we were alright. I thought he was my _dad_ , so much better than that fucker who took off when I was a _baby_. I took his _name_ and now he’s _going_.”

Louis’s hands are beginning to shake again, causing the tea in his mug to slosh about. He watches as Nick takes it and sits it down on the coffee table, and that’s the last thing he sees before he buries his face in his palms.

“Nobody wants me,” Louis says, and it comes out wobbly on account of the lump in his throat.

“That isn’t true.”

“Troy didn’t. Mark doesn’t. You _don’t_.”

Now his voice is watery. His palms are wet.

“I _do_ Louis. That’s the problem. But we _can’t_.”

It should be the best thing Louis’s ever heard. But somehow it’s both the best and the worst.

“I know,” Louis says, sitting up, wiping at his eyes, and sniffling into his sleeve. He _does_ know. “I wish we could.”

“Me too,” Nick says, still steadily rubbing at Louis’s back. “I really wish we could.”

Silence then, almost palpable.

It lasts a very, very long time. 

Until the dryer buzzes. It almost feels like a cue.

“I don’t think I’m going to come back around anymore. I know it makes you uncomfortable, so I’m just...not going to do it anymore.” 

Nick doesn’t say anything, just nods when Louis looks over.

Just stands and holds out a hand to help him up.

Leads him back to the tumble dryer situated in a nook just outside the bathroom. Gives him his warm clothes, and he’s waiting in the corridor, legs crossed at his ankles and looking down at his shoes, when Louis emerges.

He takes Louis’s hand again and very slowly leads him to the front door.

And once they’re there, he pulls Louis into the tightest embrace he’s ever been in in his life, tighter than Zayn when Louis’d come out, tighter than his mum.

Louis thinks _I’m going to miss you so much._ He thinks it, but he does not say it. Just holds on a little bit more, and thanks every star out there that he’s stopped crying.

“Goodbye Nicholas,” he says, going up on his toes and pressing a kiss to Nick’s lips, allowing himself to linger for a couple of seconds before he pulls away, _his_ lips tingling with remembered pressure. He walks over to the door, opens it, and has a foot out when he hears:

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

He turns around, and Nick’s smiling at him, soft and _genuine_. 

Louis smiles back.

“Promise I won’t.”

The rain’s stopped, and he doesn’t linger on Nick’s doorstep after he’s closed the door behind him.

~*~

He finds that the urge to contact Nick never comes up. He can’t explain it, can’t explain why it doesn’t bother him that he might never see Nick again _ever_ , but he is stunningly alright, so he just...rolls with it, hopes Nick does too.

And he keeps Nick’s number in his phone, long after common sense says he should probably delete it. He’ll pass it sometimes, especially after the night in uni when meets a guy named Niall, challenges him to a drinking contest, loses, and makes a new best mate, but he finds he’s always strangely okay each time he sees it, so he just leaves it right where it is.

It’s like a small little comfort for him, a reminder that he’d stumbled once but someone had picked him up, a _good_ someone, and that’s a very nice thing to have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do solemnly swear that Part Two is a completely different animal.


End file.
